President Sperry’s comment in Stake Conference about his Boulder, Colorado, cousins thinking Malad was the frontier made me laugh.  All my cousins grew up in the Big City and Malad was their frontier, too.  That meant I lived on the frontier without a horse, chickens or a cow.  We did have a dog, but so did some of my Big City cousins.

One thing the “frontier” did allow for was “free range”, not just for chickens but for kids.  During the summer, we got up in the morning, did our chores, practiced piano and then beat it out the door to roam until the noon whistle blew.  That was time to check in with mom, have a baloney sandwich and then meet up with friends again for the afternoon.  We really didn’t travel far, but backyards had no fences and neighborhoods included a few blocks so there was space. My boys grew up on the same frontier.

That frontier living has made a “space addict” out of me.  We, along with our son Brandon, built a home in St. George about five years ago.  I remember looking over the plans and picturing the home and yard in my mind before construction began.  Once the building started and I could “see” with my own eyes the backyard, I was shocked.  “Backyard” had always meant space, room to move, a place for kids to run and tumble.  This backyard had room for a patio table, a grill, a few plants around the perimeter and a strip of grass you could cut with scissors.  Cinder block walls kept us and our neighbors in our own space, making for a private backyard.  This was not the frontier.

I shiver when I see all these town houses, apartments, and stacked condos popping up everywhere…even some here on the frontier.  Friend Rebecca and I were talking about choices the other day.  If you could buy an older, single-family house with a yard or a new apartment with all the modern conveniences but no yard, which would you take?  

Being a space-addict raised on the frontier it was a no-brainer for me, but then I don’t do the yardwork.  That’s Brent’s department.   Here’s my concern:  Folks from the Big City are moving to the frontier to build their own single-family home with a yard. Maybe they are feeling the pinch of people back in the Big City.  But, if you consider all those new-construction town houses and apartments in the Big City, and fast forward ten years when the people in them start to feel the pinch, where are they all going to go?  The frontier??   I don’t think we have room.  Hopefully, all those people won’t want to deal with yardwork and will stay in the Big City.  The Good Life depends on it!